Old Stuff, Sure, But A New Man

Less Turbulence. Gordon's Happier This Time Around.

JOLIET, ILL. — This is by no means the first hot streak for Jeff Gordon -- just the first one for Jeff Gordon Part 2, Jeff Gordon the Sequel ... Jeff Gordon, free and happy man of 32.

He'll start on the pole in today's Tropicana 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, and a win would give Gordon three victories in a row, for the fourth time.

But the first three were by the driver known as Wonder Boy, part of a Ken and Barbie couple with wife Brooke, and otherwise tunnel-visioned about racing, which had consumed him since age 5.

Then came the 15-month divorce proceedings that were finalized a year ago, at a reported cost to Gordon of $17 million.

It all left his eyes more open to life, sent him jetting off to New York on his Lear to date Manhattan models, or down to the Caribbean to swim with sharks (literally) for relaxation.

But through the time of turbulent transition in his personal life, he was slumping on the tracks, going through long losing streaks in 2002-03, winning only three races in each of those seasons, denying all the while that his divorce and its aftermath were affecting his racing.

Only last winter did he begin to admit all the distractions.

And only now has Jeff Gordon Part 2 hit the racing stride previously known only to the original version. He has four wins already this season, the most by any driver on the Nextel Cup tour and got them in pairs: at Talladega, Ala. and Fontana, Calif., in the spring, and then the past two weeks at Sonoma, Calif., and Daytona Beach.

"It takes time to adjust to new things," he said after Friday's practice at the Joliet track. "I made big changes in my life two years ago, or however long it's been. And it's taken time to really get balanced out, and get comfortable with how I go through weeks, and how days during the week lead into the weekend."

Weekly rhythm is important to a driver, building up to qualifying on Fridays, intense practice on Saturdays, racing with total focus on Sundays, then winding down and starting it all over again, 40 weeks a year through the grueling NASCAR season.

From spending his time secluded with Brooke, then to the quasi-playboy lifestyle, he has now settled into a happy medium. There aren't so many midweek runs to Manhattan or Vegas or the Bahamas anymore; there's no one special girlfriend.

What's left is a free, happy, totally focused race driver.

"I'm very comfortable with where I'm at, in racing and in life," he said.

Is this hot streak sweeter, breezier than the past ones?

"Yeah. Oh, yeah," he said. "Life is good. It's good off the track, and then when you have the good results on the track, it only gets better."

So might this be the most fun he's ever had racing?

"It is," he said, then paused to consider. "But when you compete at this level, it just creates more and higher expectations that you have to live up to. So as much fun as I have in Victory Lane, it's short-lived, because you leave there and you go, `OK, we've got to do it again next week.'"

For a driver who won four in a row and narrowly missed a NASCAR-record five in the summer of 1998, the thrill is gone from two straight, which he has accomplished 20 times in his 11 seasons and even three straight, rare as that is. No driver has won three straight since Gordon last did it, more than five years ago.

Gordon will start on the pole for the fourth straight week. Even without a win here, he seems poised for a serious run through summer, the likes of which he hasn't seen since the '90s.

This resurgence started with a sort of bottoming out after his first two wins of this season. In the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte on May 30, he finished a miserable 35th while his teammate and protM-igM-i, Jimmie Johnson, won. The two teams work out of the same building in the Hendrick Motorsports complex, with virtually identical equipment.

"We were embarrassed," Gordon said. "You can come out in one of two ways: you can be devastated and fall apart, or it fires you up. It fired us up, I think maybe because Jimmie won. We knew we should have been, and could have been, better.

"We went straight to Dover and had a great car, but we blew a right-front tire [and wrecked]. We went to Michigan, sat on the pole and were strong [he dominated the early stages of the race] but had a motor problem [it blew]. But we were running strong. We knew we were going to hit it, one weekend or another."

Hendrick engine specialists have since diagnosed and cured the motor problems.

"There's just places along the way this year where we've had great cars, but haven't seen the results," Gordon said. "The past few weeks we've been able to put the results together and carry a little bit of momentum.

"Momentum can come with confidence, and we definitely have confidence. Everybody's smiling, everyone's working hard, and we're having a good time."